Bare feet get a breather during a hike by Morgan and the Neinasts
at Blackhand Gorge State Nature Preserve in Licking County.

Bob Neinast cools his heel while fording a stream.

The pine needles are softer, the rocks smoother and the streams
refreshing. From the bottom up, barefoot hiker has a different
sense of the woodland trail. ``I feel more. I notice more,"
said Canal Winchester hiker Greg Morgan. ``You don't notice hemlock
needles at all if you're wearing shoes.

``It's nice to have a variety of textures. Walking through grass
like you have in your yard, it's actually dull." Barefoot
hikers are sole survivors. Theirs is not a tiptoe through the
tulips. (A tulip tree, in fact, sheds a seed that makes a sharp
point with bare feet.)

A band of central Ohio barefooters meets in state and county parks
for regular hikes on trails graded for the surface and terrain,
hazards and aesthetics.

Others set off solo or with a barefoot friend.

``You go out in the woods to enjoy the sights, smells and sounds,
but if you're shod you turn off one of your senses," Pickerington
hiker Bob Neinast said. ``The textures are really interesting.
Moss is a delight."

And the unshod have practical advantages, he said. ``I don't get
blisters. I don't get sprained ankles anymore. I don't get hot
and sweaty feet.

"And crossing a stream is a lot easier."

A stream can be forded barefoot without getting shoes soaked.

Or a fallen tree can turn into a handy bridge.

"If you do find a log, it's kind of fun," Neinast said. "You
actually curl your feet around the log. You get a feeling of
stability."

Such hikers consider the bare foot stronger in a pinch than the
shod foot.

They see the shoe as a fad or a status symbol  or a misguided
means of protecting a part of the body that has stood the test
of time.

A foot in a shoe is a hoof, said Neinast, who needs the "instant
sensory feedback."

Formal occasions and freezing conditions are exceptions, of course.

To a fellow hiker, foot freedom came easy as a child in North
Carolina.

"I would go barefoot when I could, despite my mom's best wishes
at the time," said Morgan, 49. "It just felt good to me."

Peer pressure during his teen years ended his barefoot ways.

Yet the urge lingered into adulthood: After moving to central
Ohio, he found himself back on the trail in bare feet.

"It felt kind of awkward," he said, "but I discovered that,
hey, I'm not alone. There are other barefoot hikers out there."

About five years ago, he set up a Web site called Barefoot Hikers
of Central Ohio.

The group was off and running with "a few dozen members,"
including one from Michigan.

The only cut Morgan has suffered, he said, occurred on a beach.

On a trail, glass doesn't pose much of a problem  but "natural
hazards" such as sticks, stones and nuts do.

"You don't want to drag your feet or shuffle your feet or kick
piles of leaves," Morgan said. "It's a slightly different
way of walking. It comes natural."

Snow and ice discourage barefoot hiking, which can be done on
warmer winter days.

His feet soften during the cold months, Morgan said; then the
soles "thicken up" in the spring.

Along with Morgan, Neinast hopes to expand the barefoot toehold
on society.

"I'm not the kind of person who likes having people tell me what
to do," the 48-year-old said.

"I do everything barefoot, first of all"  including about
10 miles of hiking a week.

Neinast has encountered some hostility.

"Some people just think it's not proper," he said.

They buy into "the myth that it's somehow dangerous."

"When you first start walking barefoot, you tend to look down,"
he said. "You do tend to watch your step a bit more. You tend
to see things that you might not otherwise see.

"You get more into it. You develop the technique of scanning to
see what's there. It becomes absolutely second nature."

Also, he said, "There's a spiritual component in this. You feel
more connected with the Earth."

Going unshod

Walking tips

 Plant your feet, never allowing them to kick, drag or shuffle.

 Focus your eyes two to three paces down the trail, stopping to look at
anything off the path.

 Keep your weight on the balls of your feet, not on the heels  which don't
absorb shocks as well.

 Make a habit of awareness, treading lightly and sometimes warily and
tentatively  and, when moving around obstacles, deliberately.


John Chapman, a nurseryman who supplied apple-tree stock
to 19th-century pioneers in the Midwestern frontier
 and came to be know as Johnny Appleseed


Abraham Lincoln, who as a child toughened his bare feet
``in the gravel of green streams,''
Carl Sandburg writes


Confederate soldiers, who nonetheless made long,
forced marches


Joe Jackson, the baseball player who picked up the nickname
``Shoeless Joe'' when he played a minor-league game
in his stockings because he had blisters on his feet from new spikes
 before his career was ruined in the 1919 ``Black Sox''
gambling scandal

They have stronger feet, able to withstand injuries such as sprained
ankles, because they have stronger muscles and tendons, they
say.

Stuart Schilling, a podiatrist for 30 years, trusts in shoes.

"Personally, I don't like being barefoot at all, not even around
my own home," he said.

Minor scratches become portals for "fungus or bacteria that are
everywhere."

Infection, he said, "is probably the leading cause of medical
expense" in foot care.

"If people are going to do this because they find a need, at least
do it in a smart way."

Schilling suggests regular foot inspections as well as moisturizing
creams, infection-preventing vitamin A and skin-toughening soaks.

"Injury is a real issue," he said. "It's pretty easy to bump
into something or have things stubbed or have someone step on
you."

In structural terms, shoes don't make much difference to healthy
feet, Schilling said  but they do benefit feet needing support
because of weakened arches or ankles.

Barefoot hikers have found scientific studies that reinforce their
view.

Shoes render toes "functionless" and restrict motion, according
to a 1905 study in The American Journal of Orthopedic Surgery,
noting that shoes are designed by "the whim of society and the
manufacturers' enterprise."

And, says a 1987 study published in Medicine and Science in Sports
and Exercise, runningand jumping-related injuries occur more
frequently among shoe-wearing populations.

Hookworm, an intestinal parasite, invades the body through bare
feet in contact with human feces, mostly in tropical or subtropical
areas.

About 1 billion people are infected worldwide, according to the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Widespread 100 years ago in the Southeast, hookworm infections
are "largely controlled" in the United States.

Legal
matters

In 2001, Bob Neinast of Pickerington sued the Columbus Metropolitan
Library over a rule against bare feet.

A U.S. District Court judge threw out the suit last year, agreeing
with the library that the rule protects patrons from exposure
to broken glass, blood, feces and semen.

Neinast, who contends he is being denied rights guaranteed by
the U.S. Constitution, has appealed to the 6 th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals.

He has a letter of apology from the Smithsonian Institution, which
turned him out when barefoot. (He later returned for a visit
with barefoot friends.) And he maintains a list of government
buildings he has entered in bare feet.

Public institutions may impose "reasonable regulations for public
health and safety," City Attorney Richard C. Pfeiffer Jr.
said.

So the Central Ohio Transit Authority bars barefoot riders, although
nothing keeps a car owner from legally driving without shoes.

"Dare I say I have driven barefoot," Pfeiffer said. "You
can feel that pedal."

Surviving city streets, he said, requires wearing shoes.

"Who knows what lurks in the concrete at Broad and High?"

Columbus health codes don't prohibit bare feet in public.

Meanwhile, "There are no health concerns or health regulations
regarding bare feet in restaurants and businesses," said
Michelle LoParo, spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Health.
"It is a business decision."